Real Near Death Experiences

Amanda Cable -NDE During Childbirth-

Amanda Cable had always been cynical about life after death and stories of white lights leading people back to life. But when the writer, left, nearly died on the operating table during surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, she not only saw bright lights but believes her five-year-old daughter led her back to life.

Here, Amanda, 36, who also has 23-month-old twin boys and lives with her photographer husband Ray in Blackheath, South-East London, gives a compelling account of her near-death experience and explains why it has changed her views for ever.

There is a picture on my mantelpiece which never fails to send a shiver down my spine. It shows my five-year-old daughter, Ruby, on her first day at school - with an unmistakable beam of pride and excitement on her face.

Her face is shiny and scrubbed, her dark hair is tied in neat bunches and she is wearing her new uniform for the first time.

It's the sort of first-day photograph which sits in living-rooms across the country. But while other mothers gaze fondly at such snapshots, I go cold at the sight of mine.

Because hours before Ruby posed so proudly for this picture, I had nearly died on the operating table.

I lost so much blood my pulse stopped and, as doctors fought to save me, I had the most extraordinary experience.

Somehow, and in some way, my young daughter led me back to life. More extraordinarily, she appeared just as she was to look a few hours later, on her first day at school - even though I had never seen her dressed that way before.

The experience has changed my life and way of thinking for ever. A complete cynic, I have never consulted psychics, never read astrology pages and have no superstitions.

I've read accounts of near-death experiences but have always dismissed what they say happens as being due to chemical changes within the brain as vital organs shut down.

I simply didn't believe that anything extraordinary happened to sensible, down-to-earth mothers like me - until the day I found myself staring death in the face.

On Sunday, September 1, four days before Ruby was due to start at the local prep school, our family attended a 'welcome' picnic for her class.

My twin sons, Charlie and Archie, sat on a blanket and laughed as Ruby and her classmates played chase. It was a wonderful afternoon, and as we packed up our picnic I said to my husband, Ray: 'Life couldn't be sweeter.' That night, I had a disturbing, vivid dream. I was back at the park with my children, but a fourth child - a little boy - ran away from me. I chased him, thinking at first he was one of my sons. But as he turned and laughed, his face seemed to be an amalgamation of all my children's features, as though he was their brother.

He laughed, and slipped through my grasp. Each time I reached out to touch him, he leapt forward and left my fingers trailing in thin air. I awoke with a start, drenched with sweat.

My Monday morning began as normal, but by 11am I had developed a nagging pain in my side. I was forced to lie in bed while our nanny took the children out. I thought I simply had a painful stomach bug.

By the following day, the pain was worse, and on Wednesday morning, I was in such agony that I called out the GP to my house. He arrived at 1pm, and within ten minutes he had called for an ambulance, explaining that I was dehydrated and showing signs of peritonitis - a potentially fatal infection caused by a tear in the stomach wall.

At casualty, with my husband called to my side, I underwent emergency tests, and it was then, to our astonishment, that we learned I was eight weeks' pregnant. Doctors diagnosed an ectopic pregnancy, where the foetus develops inside the fallopian tube instead of the womb.